Coronavirus: four deaths, 59 people test positive on Thursday (Updated)

Health authorities on Thursday announced four new deaths from Covid-19, while island-wide testing tracked 59 new positives.

In an email circulated to the media, the health ministry clarified the four deaths in question “are from the previous days, for which the medical certificates of causes of death were sent by the clinics of the hospital today.”

The latest people classified as deceased due to Covid-19 were three men – aged 61, 82 and 68 – who expired at Nicosia general hospital’s ICU, and a 93-year-old man who passed away at Nicosia general.

That brings the death toll so far to 371, of whom 67 per cent are men. The average age of the deceased is 77.4 years.

Per new policy, the health ministry disclosed neither the vaccination status of the deceased nor whether they had underlying conditions.

Meanwhile hospitals across the island were treating 47 coronavirus patients, of whom 17 in a serious condition. Nine of the patients classified as serious were intubated, two in ICU without intubation, and six in a high-dependency unit.

The Famagusta referral hospital for Covid-19 had 11 patients, Nicosia general 23, Limassol general 12, and Makarios hospital one.

The 59 new positives came from 37,664 tests (of which 5,210 done via PCR), representing a positivity rate of 0.16 per cent.

The latest positives take the total to date to 73,055.

A breakdown of the positives: five from 164 samples via contact tracing; 11 from 3,049 samples taken at the airports; 11 from 1,570 samples through private initiative; five from 319 samples processed at the microbiology labs of the general hospitals; and 27 from 32,064 samples through the government’s free antigen rapid test programme

By district, and for rapid tests only, Limassol had a 0.19 per cent positivity rate; then Nicosia at 0.11 per cent; and Famagusta at 0.05 per cent. No positives were detected in Larnaca or Paphos.